Overlooked
by suddenlyseekingsansa
Summary: December of 1936.  George Crawley receives a journal for his thirteenth birthday, and writes his first entry.


_Author's Note: Well, hello! This is my first experience writing any sort of Downton fic, and was really just an experiment to see how I would do. I haven't written anything other than Harry Potter in a while, so it was nice dipping my toes into something new! I've planned out a plot for this, but I figure it's probably best as a one-shot at the moment. I have to get out of this semester at school alive first before I can legitimately start another multi-chap fic, haha. _

_Hope you enjoy!_

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><p><em>December 22, 1936<em>

Well... I don't particularly know how to start this. I've never owned a journal before, or a diary as my brother preferred to call it. I'd rather like to smack him across the face with it, but obviously, I can't, without the reprimanding from my mother. I hate to make her angry, after all...

It's my thirteenth birthday today. My brother, Robbie, he got a nice watch for his thirteenth birthday, but all I got was this journal. It's a nice one, it's leather, there is no lining so I can draw as much I as I want, but yet I was still disappointed.

My birthday is always overlooked. Three days away from Christmas, everyone is already so focused on that holiday. All of the children are back from school, all of our cousins are here...everything is just so hectic. No time for the second-born son of the Earl, the quiet one, the one that stays in his bedroom so much, reading, drawing, and now, writing. Robbie always likes to push my buttons about it all, calling me awful names and trying his very best to embarrass me at school (never at home, in front of my parents...he's too clever for that).

Father took me out to York today to fit me for a new hunting suit, as I had outgrown my last one. The tailor said I had grown three and a half inches since the last I was there, and father gave me a warm pat on the back, and said to me, "You'll never stop growing, it seems."

I love my father. I do. Out of all my siblings, my family...he's the only one that understands me. He'll sit and read with me in the library, sometimes all day, and we'd compare stories just before dinner. That's when I felt the closest to him. Not when we went out shooting, or when we took the train to London and played cards on the way down.

Mother, however, prefers to leave me alone. Tonight though, just a couple of hours or so ago, she waltzed into my room.

"Darling," she said, sitting down on the small sofa next to me, "have you enjoyed your birthday? I know it's fallen between the cracks, so to speak, but it's so very busy...both of your aunts and their families are here, and then Aunt Rosamund and her crazy antics. It's been rather chaotic here, you know."

I smiled, and leaned my head against her side as she wrapped her arm around me. "I know, Mama. I understand."

She sighed heavily. "I wish you didn't understand, I feel like your birthday is always overlooked. How would you like to go to London with me, just after New Years? Just you and me, darling."

Of course I would have to wait nearly two weeks for my mother to properly acknowledge my birthday. Mother always celebrated hers with Robbie... they were only a few days apart, anyways. Alice's was just before the school term began. The girls's birthday was in September, but they haven't gone off to boarding school yet, they're only seven.

I don't think anyone would think of me to be a jealous person, but I suppose I am. I don't think it's a terribly bad trait to have, especially when you're right in the middle of five siblings. I should be used to it now, though. Thirteen birthdays that I'm sure all were forgettable (I can't remember any of the ones before I turned six, of course.).

"No, thank you, Mama," I said, shoving my hands in between my thighs. "I've had a perfectly good birthday."

Mama laughed. "Oh, no, you haven't, Georgie. You're just being too nice for words. You do know how to make your old mother feel better."

"You aren't old!" I exclaimed, sitting up, escaping her embrace. "Aunt Rosamund is old, not you."

"Well, don't let her hear that!" She laughed, again, and pressed a kiss to my cheek. "Come on, we've got a surprise for you."

There was a cake waiting for me downstairs. Carson had even come up from his cottage in town, and was lectured from Mama for walking all the way up to the house. He is pushing eighty, I believe, but he still visited the house quite often since he chose to retire four years ago. He was always my favorite when I was younger, presenting me with books or some biscuits he had snuck out of the kitchen. I was ever so sad when he left.

Lily was there as well. I was a bit surprised she had come, as it was nearly nine. She wished me a happy birthday and then she did the most extraordinary thing. She kissed me! It was on the cheek, of course, but out of all these years of knowing each other and playing together out on the lawn and pestering Robbie... I have never thought of her like that. I wonder if she had been planning it or if it was just spur of the moment.

I am so sure I blushed bright red, and I could hear mama chuckle behind me and push me gently towards the table so I could blow out the candles. I kept my eyes away from Mr Bates, my father's valet, and Lily's father, because I knew he was thinking things about the two of us. But honestly, I have never thought of her in that way. She isn't even twelve yet!

She will be though, next month. On the fourteenth. It's the last one I'll be there for for a few years, since I'll be off to Eton next year. Then I'll be with Robbie round the clock. I am just ever so excited to spend all my time with my _lovely _brother.

Robbie and I can't stand each other. He _knows _he is the most prized son, he is the heir, and I will just be stuck as _The Honourable George Duncan Crawley_ for the rest of my life.

He'll be the Earl. I'll be the spare.

He is very tall and lean, and I'm _still_ rather short for my age and quite asthmatic.

He'll spend his life happy and without worry, and I'll be trying to catch up to him the whole time.

My sisters will all marry well, especially Alice. As soon as she turned fourteen mother caught wind of possible suitors for her during her season in a couple years. Father did look very perplexed (after all, his darling girl was before he ushered Alice and I out of the room. I saw the pleased look on her face.

Maybe I should be like grandfather and find an American girl with lots of money. It did work out well for him in the end, I think. He and grandmama loved each other very much, from what I can remember.

Joseph has turned up with my pajamas now, so I suppose I should go to bed.

Hopefully my thirteenth year will be more exciting than my twelfth. Only time will tell.

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><p><em>Thanks for reading, guys! Reviews warm my soul. :D<em>

_-Bailey xx_


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